I’m the first to admit that I’ve used SbB as a vehicle over the years to meet hot girls. Overused is more like it. But I’m put to shame by a guy named Mitch Mortaza.

(Before They Were Famous: Geico caveman on Blind Date!)

Mortaza, who claims to run a full-fledged Hollywood talent agency that looks more like an empty storefront, is the man who created lingerie football. The initial game, in 2004, was sold as pay-per-view event opposite Super Bowl halftime, and thanks to an insane amount of media coverage, you probably remember it. (But if you actually paid to see the *game*, you’d most like to forget it.)

In the run up to that first event, provocative ads fished for PPV buys by depicting the girls in outfits right off the Spearmint Rhino rack. But the actual production turned out to be women flailing around a football field wearing undergarments that looked more Lane Bryant than lustful football fairy. (We’ll have to settle for Jeff Reed instead.)

(Kickoff promo: Fans get free postgame one-way mirror tokens?)

More recently, Mortaza has made subsequent, unsuccessful attempts to stage more *games* and even gone so far as to propose a lingerie football league. If you read this site, you’ve probably seen all the gratuitous local news footage of tryouts for the league around the country. (Like I’m complaining.)

I have though done my best to ignore the whole thing, as Mortaza appeared to me as just another shameless publicity hound hawking a fake product. That is, until I saw him on CNBC this week selling his concept as a legitimate business and claiming that NFL owners wanted to buy into his *league*. (OK, maybe Jer is interested.)